Onions are often a kitchen culprit. Their tear-jerking aroma wreaking havoc, drawing people away.
Despite their pungency, Laura Pyles, our culinary arts teacher, believes they are fundamental to a plethora of cuisine — whether caramelized, sauteed, or incorporated into a luscious salad. 
Culinary arts was implemented two years ago when Pyles became a full-time teacher here. Though a chef, her title doesn’t limit her contribution to the kitchen.
Following the growth of our culinary arts pathway, she has been collaborating with horticulture teacher Matthew Davis, helping to mesh our harvest in the greenhouse with delicious dishes made in the Culinary arts.
Eggplants, tomatoes, and of course, onions, were some of the first harvest this past summer, which Pyles and fellow staff were able to spin into a delicious Mediterranean caponata.
This autumn, the horticulture department has continued to work towards a hefty harvest, hoping to yield more produce both usable in culinary and marketable at the fall plant sale, a fundraiser that keeps our greenhouse alive.
Though vegetables are a large portion of what comes out of the greenhouse, they’re not all that fills the basket; herbs planned to be processed, dried, and turned into seasonings, like poultry spice and herb de provence, were also harvested this past summer.
A large bath of bay leaves sits in the back of room 1134 where Pyles teaches her craft, dried and awaiting to be packaged in with fun hale stickers to also hopefully sell.
With their collaboration on the fall plants sale, the connection only grows stronger.
“It’s super connected,” Pyles said. “We pull a lot of stuff from up there.”
Last year, culinary used almost one-hundred percent greenhouse grown tomatoes during their pasta
week.
“We didn’t have to buy any for fall Culinary, which was really great,” said Pyles.
This school year, the tomatoes haven’t fully ripened, but Pyles remains hopeful they can reuse that aspect of pasta week, continuing to integrate greenhouse harvest with her classes.
Davis’s iconic hot peppers are also woven into the curriculum.
Once brought down from the greenhouse, they’re fermented into hot sauces or even dried to later become chili paste and chili flakes.
“[Davis] planted chilis specifically for us this year,” Pyles said.
Access to custom, homegrown produce has allowed advanced culinary to make complex cuisines like kimchi, a spicy Korean side-dish, while exploring methods of fermentation.
Davis has already planted the chilis for another Korean delicacy: Gochujang — a fermented, spicy condiment Culinary arts hopes to replicate once fermentation week rolls back around.
Recently, some leopard Carolina reapers have been brought down, soon to be used to practice knife skills and incorporated into salsa week.
“They’re not quite at their peak level of heat yet, so they weren’t quite spicy enough,” Said Pyles.
Horticulture and Culinary combine their expertise once the ‘Hot as Hale’ hot sauce project begins to creep up again.
“The dream is to eventually be selling some of those hot sauces,” Said Pyles. “Not just using them for bite of Hale.”
Alongside incorporating horticulture’s produce into the culinary arts curriculum, Pyles is involved in our “farm-to-fork” club, which recently received a grant to buy fruit trees for an orchard.
The ground was prepped, and an assortment of fig, pie cherry, sweet cherry, and plum trees were delivered to the greenhouse.
They were then planted by the horticulture club in the first week of October, laying down the roots for a longer-term project
“Most of the trees won’t really start fruiting for the next three years,” Pyles said.
Much of what horticulture grows peaks during the summer season, meaning it needs just as much — if not more — nurture and care during months where school isn’t even in session, leaving the Farm to Fork club working all year round.
“We’re at the greenhouse all summer long,” Pyles said. “You can’t just abandon it.”
Even with the wide, vibrant variety of vegetables, Pyles doesn’t let herself or the Culinary program the loose sight of what’s truly important: tasty, educational, homegrown cooking — especially when accented with onion!
